Notification system and method

ABSTRACT

A dispatch and notification system that can adjust resources to meet and accommodate real time changes in demand or load is disclosed. The system provides an automated assembly that includes provisions that provide an effective and low cost arrangement that notifies technicians of real time changes in their scheduled work. The system can determine if a real time intervention in a technician&#39;s schedule is necessary and can notify the technician in near real time of changes in assigned tasks.

This application claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/468,930, filed Dec. 22,1999.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is directed to a system and method for notifyingand dispatching employees. The notification system and method of thepresent invention may also be used as an accessory or addition toexisting dispatch systems.

2. Background of the Invention

Existing employee dispatch systems and methods include either adispatcher (a person who receives and processes requests for services),or an automated dispatch system. These existing dispatch systems sufferfrom shortcomings and limitations that significantly detract from theirusefulness and their efficient management of resources.

The limitations of current dispatch systems can be demonstrated byconsidering an example of a large public utility, such as a localtelephone company that provides telephone services. Local telephonecompanies typically have tens of millions of customers, and thosecustomers request new services or changes in services. These requestsrequire the telephone company to dispatch technicians to servicelocations to make the requested changes in service.

On average, a local telephone company will make two and a half to threemillion service order dispatches per year. Generally, the productivityper task is about 2 hours, in other words, the requests for servicegenerally take 2 hours to resolve. With this level of productivity, thelocal telephone company can only assign around four items per day pertechnician. Thus each truck dispatch is extremely costly to the localtelephone company. It therefore becomes imperative that each dispatch iseffective, i.e., each dispatch either actually resolves the problem orobtains information needed to resolve the problem.

Conventional automated dispatch systems very often assign tasks on afirst-come, first-serve basis to the first available technician. As atechnician completes or close out a job, the next job in the queue isautomatically assigned to that technician. Occasionally, byhappenstance, this first-come first-serve priority system would produceefficiencies where a second job would come to the technician after thefirst job was completed and the second job would happen to be in thesame location as the first job. This would allow the technician toquickly complete a second job without having to drive to anotherlocation. Unfortunately, these efficiencies seldom occur and then onlyby pure chance. Oftentimes, in fact, that was not the case, and it wouldbe very likely that a technician would leave the first location totravel to the next job site and a second technician would drive up tothat first location to complete a second job there.

Moreover, in some cases a single problem causes multiple customers tolose service or experience poor service. For example, damage topedestals that provide telephone service to multiple customers couldcause several customers to report problems or loss of service. Thepedestal often is located on the side of the road and provides aconnection between a customer's location and serving centers. Thesepedestals are subject to damage, for example, from cars or even fromstate highway mowers. When damage to these pedestals occurs, the resultis often that multiple outages occur in one locality. Generally,conventional reporting and dispatch systems address this problem bysetting a certain tolerance threshold to indicate a probable commonproblem. For example, if the threshold were set at five, the systemwould require five or more similar complaints or reports of problemsreceived from a common location to assume that a common problem wascausing all of the problems reported by customers. If that thresholdnumber of complaints or reports were met, then only a single technicianwould be dispatched to resolve the problem.

However, in those cases where the threshold for a system wide orregional problem is not met, as many (in the example provided above) asfour technicians may be deployed to a single site causing enormous wasteof resources and extreme expense to the company.

Also, customers often cancel appointments or request a modification inservice. Sometimes these changes can occur at the last minute andexisting systems have no way of informing the technician of thesechanges. These cancellations and modifications also waste technicianresources, because technicians waste time waiting for customers or arerequired to return to the same location to make the modifications inservice that the customer later requested.

Another source of ineffective use of technician resources is the lack ofknowledge of customer service representatives. These representativesoften lack an understanding of the costs associated with techniciandeployment and of the logistical complexities of managing and assigninga large number of technicians. They are generally trained to meet thecustomer's needs and to generate service orders. However, customerservice representatives may occasionally create two different serviceorders for related or similar tasks. This could cause two dispatches tobe generated and result in two technicians being deployed to the samelocation to fix what the service representative thinks are two differentproblems, but is instead only a single problem that could be handled bya single technician.

Dispatch systems that use a human dispatcher may permit real timemodification of tasks and assignments. However, these dispatch systems,generally employed by taxicab companies, suffer significant drawbacksthat would prevent them from being employed in large-scale environments.These dispatcher-based dispatch systems rely on a human dispatcher whois given information regarding demand (customers that need rides). Thedispatcher uses this information combined with his or her knowledge ofwhere all of the cabs are to assign the customer pick up to the nearestavailable cab. First, these dispatch systems are very expensive becausea staff of well trained dispatchers are required to work around theclock, 24 hours a day, to match resources with demand. Second, thedispatcher-based systems are not practical for large-scale deploymentbecause human dispatchers cannot accurately track hundreds, much lessthousands, of technicians and their daily assignments. Finally, humandispatcher-based systems rely heavily dependent on the performance ofthe dispatcher or the dispatcher staff. Human error may produce anunacceptable level of errors.

Thus there is currently a need for a system that accommodates real timeor near real time changes in load or demand by adjusting or reallocatingresources to meet those changing needs. There is also need for such asystem that is also automated, can handle a large number of techniciansand requests for services, and inexpensively delivers information to thetechnician.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is designed to overcome the shortcomings of theprior art and to provide an effective and efficient dispatching systemthat can adjust resources to meet and accommodate real time changes indemand or load. The invention provides a system that notifiestechnicians of real time changes in their scheduled work. The system candetermine if a real time intervention in a technician's schedule isnecessary and can notify the technician in near real time of changes inassigned tasks. In this way, the invention adjusts the allocation ofresources to meet real time changes in demand.

Once a technician has been dispatched to complete a task, the systemmonitors cancellations and changes that may be requested by the customerfor that task. The system sends information to adjust the assignment ofthe technician to efficiently utilize the technician's time insituations where the customer has requested late or last minutecancellations or changes.

The system allows real time or near real time instructions to be sent tothe technician. These instructions can include changes or modificationsto the task assigned to the technician. The instructions can alsoinclude notices that the task has been canceled, or that the technicianshould complete the assigned task and then remain at that location toreceive the next assignment.

The invention may include a system that considers the followinginformation in determining if a real time intervention is necessary:information regarding the work history of the technician or the numberof hours the technician has worked in a pay period, including the numberof overtime hours, the availability of the technician, thequalifications of the technician, and the suitable locations where thetechnician is most beneficially dispatched.

An object of the present invention is to reduce or eliminate theinefficient use of technicians.

Another object of the present invention is to maximize the utilizationof technicians.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a system thatadjusts and reallocates resources to meet real time changes in load ordemand.

Another object of the present invention is to provide real time or nearreal time information to a technician regarding the status of hisassignments.

Additional features and advantages of the invention well be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be apparent from thedescription, or may be learned by practicing the invention. Theobjectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized andattained by the structure particularly pointed out in the writtendescription and claims as well as the appended drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of another preferred embodiment of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a schematic representation of a preferred embodiment of thepresent invention. When a problem 102 arises and is reported to anotification system 104, according to the present invention,notification system 104 reviews the qualifications of a number oftechnicians 106, and selects the most suitable technician 108 todispatch to the problem 102.

Once the suitable technician 108 has been dispatched or is en route 110to the problem, the invention allows real time or near real timeinstructions to be sent to the technician. These instructions caninclude changes or modifications to the task assigned to the technician108. Preferably, those instructions also include notices that the tasktechnician 108 is currently heading towards has been canceled, or thatthe technician should complete the assigned task and then remain at thatlocation to receive the next assignment.

In a preferred embodiment, the system 104 includes information regardingthe work history of the technician or the number of hours the technicianhas worked in a pay period, including the number of overtime hours, theavailability of the technician, the qualifications of the technician,and suitable locations to which the technician is most beneficiallydispatched. In addition to considering all of these factors in decidingto send information to the technician 108, the system 104 also monitorsproblem information and requests for service sent to the system bycustomers and customer service representatives. The system 104 analyzesrequests for modifications to existing assignments and determines if areal time intervention is required. If a real time intervention isrequired, the system 104 sends a message to the technician 108 andinforms the technician 108 of that information.

FIG. 2 is a preferred embodiment of the present invention in whichvarious components have been assembled and linked together to provide anotification system 200. The notification system 200 includes a dispatchunit 202, a centralized call-out system (CCS) 206, an employeescheduling program (ESP) 208 and a paging system 210. The system 200 cancommunicate with various other devices, for example, an access unit 204via access system 203 and pagers 212 via paging system 210.

The dispatch unit 202 serves several functions. Dispatch unit 202,according to this embodiment, receives information 201 about problems orrequests for service from customers directly or through customer servicerepresentatives. These problems could include reports of downed lines,loss of service, poor service and other problems that affect theservices rendered. Examples of requests for service include requests tomodify or change the services rendered. In the specific context of alocal telephone company, this could include requests to add additionaltelephone lines, to add DSL lines, to install additional telephonejacks, and other types of service. Preferably, the dispatch unit 202receives information regarding problems or requests for service throughcustomer service representatives who complete an interactivecomputerized form. Preferably, this information, which may include thecustomer's name, address, telephone number, billing information, andnature of problem, is communicated to the dispatch system 202 when atechnician intervention is required.

Dispatch unit 202 communicates with one or more access units 204 via anaccess system 203. The access system 203, which is capable of wirelessor wireline communications with access units 204, also communicates withdispatch unit 202. The access system 203 conveys information from theaccess units 204 to dispatch unit 202. In an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention, the Tech Plus system is used as the access system203. The Tech Plus system is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 09/343,815, which is assigned to the same assignee as the presentapplication, and is incorporated by reference herein. The access units204 are preferably each associated with a technician. Preferably, eachtechnician is assigned an access unit 204 and can use the access unit204 to communicate with the dispatch unit 202. For purposes of clarity,this disclosure will describe a single access unit 204, but it should bekept in mind that many other access units 204 may be in communicationwith dispatch unit 202. Dispatch unit 202 sends information regardingwork assignments to the access unit 204 via access system 203, which iscapable of wireless or wireline communication with access unit 204. Inan exemplary embodiment of the invention, the dispatch system 202 is anLMOS™ (Loop Maintenance Operating System) created by LucentTechnologies.

Dispatch system 202 sends assignment information to access unit 204 viaaccess system 203 and technicians use access unit 204 to retrieveassignment information. Access unit 204 is preferably equipped with adisplay 220 and an input portion 222. Preferably, only one assignment issent to the access unit 204 at a time and a second assignment is onlysent after the first assignment has been completed or closed by thetechnician. Access unit 204 may also include provisions that allowtechnicians to retrieve infrastructure information. For example, in thecontext of a local telephone company, infrastructure information couldinclude the number of lead pairs available to a particular location, thenumber of switches available and other information related toinfrastructure. Access unit 204 may also include provisions that allowtechnicians to run tests on the customer's equipment.

The employee scheduling program (ESP) 208 communicates with dispatchunit 202 and centralized call-out system (CCS) 206. ESP 208 contains adatabase that associates each technician with an employee or techniciannumber and a system number. Preferably, the system number is an LMOS™system number. The use of a system number is optional, but may behelpful where systems allow only three digit employee numbers and thosesame employee numbers must be used over again for different employees indifferent regions. Adding a regional designation or a system numberallows each employee to have a unique identification. ESP 208 alsoincludes a detailed database that contains schedule information for someor all of the technicians. ESP 208 preferably stores the schedulinginformation for all or some of the technicians for up to one year.Maintenance personnel preferably maintain, enter, and modify theschedules of technicians using the ESP 208.

ESP 208 provides information regarding the availability of techniciansto dispatch unit 202. Preferably, ESP 208 provides technician numbers,system numbers, and scheduling information to dispatch unit 202. Thedispatch unit 202 preferably stores a detailed, but shorter time span ofinformation regarding scheduling. While the preferred ESP may store ayear of scheduling information, the preferred dispatch unit 202 maystore only about three to five days of scheduling information. Inaddition to providing information to dispatch unit 202, ESP 208 alsoprovides information to CCS 206. Preferably, ESP 208 provides techniciannumbers, system numbers, and scheduling information to CCS 206.

Once CCS 206 receives information from ESP 208, CCS 206 constructs atable or database that includes technician numbers, system numbers,pager numbers, and pager types. The pager numbers and pager types thatare carried by the technicians are stored in CCS 206, and CCS 206associates these pager numbers and pager types with the additionalinformation sent to it by ESP 208. The pager numbers are associated withpagers worn or carried by technicians. CCS 206 is in communication withboth the dispatch unit 202 and a paging system 210.

In order to maximize the efficient use of resources, namely, thetechnicians and their time, the system 200 can dynamically adjusttechnician deployment to accommodate real time changes in load or demandfor services. Notification system 200 accomplishes this by rapidlynotifying technicians of information that could affect their workschedule as soon as possible, and by diverting technicians away frominefficient situations to locations where their talents and skills willbe more effectively utilized. These notices to technicians can occur innear real time and even during the critical period after the technicianhas been dispatched to a job site.

In order to accomplish this near real time adjustment in techniciandeployment, system 200 preferably uses a number of different components.The following example of an adjustment demonstrates how system 200 candynamically adjust technician deployment in near real time.

Initially, dispatch unit 202 is functioning in its normal routine. Itreceives problems or requests for service 201, matches technicians basedon the factors mentioned above, then transmits tasks and assignments toaccess unit 204 via access system 203. As noted above, the dispatch unit202 may assign tasks in any suitable manner. However, the preferredmethod of assignment considers several factors including commitmentdates and time, severity of the outage, the revenue generated by theservice order, and the availability of a close-by technician.Technicians are preferably assigned based upon geographic regions, whichare areas bound by natural geographic barriers. Technicians who aregeographically located closer to the task being the preferred dispatchtechnician. The technicians read the tasks and drive to thosedestinations to make the necessary repairs or changes in service.Occasionally, dispatch unit 202 will retrieve additional informationfrom the ESP 208 and update its technician work schedules.

Dynamic adjustments occur when dispatch unit 202 is notified of amodification or change to a technician's schedule, or learns of asituation that could result in more efficient use of resources.Customers sometimes call their customer service representatives tonotify them that they need to cancel, postpone or change a work requestthey had previously submitted. When this occurs, the customer servicerepresentative relays the information to dispatch unit 202.

When the dispatch unit 202 receives the notification that a work requesthas been changed or modified, the dispatch unit 202 determines if anintervention by CCS 206 would be helpful. Any desired situation orcondition that helps to prevent waste of technician resources ormaximize technician utilization may be used by the dispatch unit 202 todetermine if a CCS 206 intervention would be helpful.

Preferably, a condition where a technician has already been dispatchedto a job site to an assigned task combined with a request formodification of that task is the condition used to determine a CCS 206intervention. After dispatch unit 202 has determined that a CCS 206intervention would be helpful, dispatch unit 202 communicatesappropriate information to CCS 206 so that CCS 206 can provide real timeadjustment information to the technician. Preferably, dispatch unit 202communicates geographic information, that is, where in the serviceregion the technician must go to respond to the request and where thetechnician is located or assigned; information associated with thetechnician, like the employee number and the technician's system number;and information related to the modification or change in schedule ortask.

This information is used by CCS 206 to determine which technician shouldreceive the information and what information that technician shouldreceive. Once the identity of the technician and the adjustmentinformation to be sent to the technician has been determined, CCS 206communicates this information to a paging system 210. Preferably, theinformation communicated to the paging system 210 includes thetechnician's pager number and an information code. CCS 206 can alsopreferably send a text message, if the technician's pager is capable ofreceiving text messages.

The paging system 210 receives the information from CCS 206 and sends apage to the technician's pager 212. After the technician has been paged,the technician can review the information displayed on pager 212 and actaccordingly.

Some of the preferred messages that are sent to technicians includecodes that inform the technicians that a job has been canceled ormodified. Another code that can be sent to the technician informs thetechnician that the next job will be at the same or nearby location. Inessence, this code is a “remain where you are and standby for the nextjob” command. Obviously, if a customer wants to cancel a previouslyscheduled service order, the cancel code will be transmitted. Similarly,if a customer wants to change or modify a previously scheduled serviceorder, the change or modify code will be transmitted to the technician.When the technician receives the change or modify code, the technicianis preferably trained to retrieve the new job from the access system204. Finally, if the system 200 determines that it would be beneficialfor the technician to remain at a certain location after a job has beencompleted, the remain code will be transmitted. In an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention, the cancel code is 333, the modifyor change code is 444 and the remain code is 555.

Any of the various components or sub-steps disclosed above can be usedeither alone, or with other existing components, or with components orfeatures of the present invention.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations can be made to the dynamic carrierselection system of the present invention without departing from thespirit or scope of the invention.

The foregoing disclosure of embodiments of the present invention hasbeen presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is notexhaustive or intended to limit the invention to the precise formsdisclosed herein. Many variations and modifications of the embodimentsdescribed herein will be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art inlight of the above disclosure. The scope of the invention is to bedefined only by the claims appended hereto, and by their equivalents.

1. A system for dispatching technicians, comprising: (a) a dispatch unitreceiving request for service; and (b) a plurality of access units incommunication with the dispatch unit, each access plurality of accessunits associated with each of a plurality of technicians, each accessunit providing access to information related to an infrastructure, andeach access unit allowing each of the plurality of technicians to runtests on a customer's equipment, the dispatch unit receiving a requestfor service from a customer, generating an assignment having a pluralityof attributes associated with the request, comparing the plurality ofattributes associated with the request with a plurality ofqualifications associated with the each of the plurality of technicians,selecting a technician based upon a matching of attributes andqualifications and proximity to a location of the request for service,sending the assignment to the selected technician, the assignmentinstructing the selected technician to perform the requested service,and the dispatch unit monitoring a cancellation by the customer of therequest for service, and the dispatch unit notifying the selectedtechnician in real-time of the cancellation.
 2. The system of claim 1,wherein the system further includes a database including criteria of awork history, number of overtime hours, an availability andqualifications of the each of the plurality of technicians, and suitablelocation to which the each of the plurality of technicians is the mostbeneficially dispatched.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the systemmonitor additional request for service and requests to change servicereceived before performance of the assignment, and when it is determinedthat the selected technician should be diverted from performing theassignment as a result from the additional requests or the requests tochange service, the system communicates a scheduling change message tothe selected technician before performance of the assignment.
 4. Thesystem of claim 3, wherein new assignments are generated for theadditional requests for service.
 5. A system for dispatching andnotifying employees, comprising: a dispatch unit adapted to receiverequest for service; an access unit in communication with the dispatchunit, wherein the access unit is associated with an employee, the accessunit providing access to information related to an infrastructure, andthe access unit allowing the employee to run tests on a customer'sequipment; a database including a number of hours, including overtime,the employee has worked in a pay period and locations in proximity to ageographic location to which the employee is assigned; a notifying unitin communication with the dispatch unit and the database; and amessaging unit in communication with the notifying unit, the dispatchunit receiving a first request for service, generating a workassignment, sending the work assignment to the employee, and monitoringadditional requests for service or request to change service receivedafter the first request, and when it is determined that modification oft he work assignment is needed based on number of hours worked by theemployee and a cancellation of the first request for service, thedispatch unit communicates appropriate information to the notifyingunit, and the notifying unit locates the employee and provides real timeadjustment information to the employee through the message unit, thereal time adjustment instructing the employee to remain at currentlocation for a next assignment.
 6. The system of claim 5, the systemincluding a plurality of access units, each of the plurality of theaccess units associated with each of a plurality of employees, and thedatabase includes schedule information and qualifications of theplurality of employees.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the dispatchunit generates the work assignment, matches the work assignment to oneof the plurality of employees having availability and acceptablequalifications for performing the work assignment, and sends the workassignment to the of the plurality of employees.
 8. A method fordispatching and notifying employees, comprising: receiving a firstrequest for service; generating a work assignment in response to thefirst request of service; selecting an employee assigned to a geographicregion that is proximate to a location associated with the first requestfor service; sending the work assignment to the employee; monitoring asecond request for service received after the first request for service;analyzing the second request for service; receiving a cancelation of thefirst request for service; determining a condition exists where i) theemployee has been dispatched to the location associated with the workassignment and ii) a request has been received to modify the workassignment; determining that real time intervention is required tomodify the work assignment based on the number of hours worked,including overtime, by the employee in a pay period and based on themodification of the work assignment; and sending a cancelation code tothe employee informing the employee that the work assignment has beencanceled.
 9. The method of 8, wherein selecting an employee includesmatching the work assignment to one of a plurality of employees havingavailability and acceptable qualifications for performing the workassignment.
 10. The method of 8, wherein the method further includesnotifying the employee when it is determined that real time interventionis required.
 11. A system for dispatching technicians comprising: (a) adispatch unit capable of receiving requests for service and generatingwork assignments associated with the requests; and (b) an access unit,wherein the access unit is associated with a technician, the access unitproviding access to information related to an infrastructure, and theaccess unit allowing the technician to run tests on a customer'sequipment, the dispatch unit receiving a first request for service,generating a work assignment, scheduling a technician to perform thework assignment, sending the work assignment to the technician assignedto a geographic region that is proximate to a location associated withthe work assignment, receiving a cancelation of the work assignment,determining a condition exists where i) the technician has beendispatched to the location associated with the work assignment, ii) arequest has been received to modify the work assignment, and iii) therequest to modify the work assignment was received before performance ofthe work assignment, determining that real time intervention is requiredto modify the work assignment based on the number of hours worked,including overtime, by the employee in a pay period and based on themodification of the work assignment; and sending a cancelation code tothe employee informing the employee that the work assignment has beencanceled.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein when it is determined thatthe work assignment needs to be modified, the system communicates amodification message to the assigned technician before performance ofthe work assignment.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the systemfurther includes a notifying unit in communication with the dispatchunit.
 14. The system of claim 13, wherein when it is determined that thework assignment needs to be modified, the dispatch unit forwardsinformation related to modification of the work assignment to thenotifying unit, and the notifying unit identifies the technicianassociated with the work assignment and communicates a modificationmessage to the technician in real time.